The Railway Children
“Are you sure your Mother won't mind?” whispered Jim.
“Certain,” said Bobbie.
“Then we're to take him up to Three Chimneys?” said the bailiff.
“Of course,” said Peter.
“Then my lad shall nip up to Doctor's on his bike, and tell him to come
down there. Now, lads, lift him quiet and steady. One, two, three!”
* * * * * *
Thus it happened that Mother, writing away for dear life at a story
about a Duchess, a designing villain, a secret passage, and a missing
will, dropped her pen as her work-room door burst open, and turned to
see Bobbie hatless and red with running.
“Oh, Mother,” she cried, “do come down. We found a hound in a red jersey
in the tunnel, and he's broken his leg and they're bringing him home.”
“They ought to take him to the vet,” said Mother, with a worried frown;
“I really CAN'T have a lame dog here.”
“He's not a dog, really--he's a boy,” said Bobbie, between laughing and
choking.
“Then he ought to be taken home to his mother.”
“His mother's dead,” said Bobbie, “and his father's in Northumberland.
Oh, Mother, you will be nice to him? I told him I was sure you'd want us
to bring him home. You always want to help everybody.”
Mother smiled, but she sighed, too. It is nice that your children should
believe you willing to open house and heart to any and every one who
needs help. But it is rather embarrassing sometimes, too, when they act
on their belief.
“Oh, well,” said Mother, “we must make the best of it.”
When Jim was carried in, dreadfully white and with set lips whose red
had faded to a horrid bluey violet colour, Mother said:--
“I am glad you brought him here. Now, Jim, let's get you comfortable in
bed before the Doctor comes!”
And Jim, looking at her kind eyes, felt a little, warm, comforting flush
of new courage.
“It'll hurt rather, won't it?” he said. “I don't mean to be a coward.
You won't think I'm a coward if I faint again, will you? I really
and truly don't do it on purpose. And I do hate to give you all this
trouble.”
“Don't you worry,” said Mother; “it's you that have the trouble, you
poor dear--not us.”
And she kissed him just as if he had been Peter. “We love to have you
here--don't we, Bobbie?”
“Yes,” said Bobbie--and she saw by her Mother's face how right she had
been to bring home the wounded hound in the red jersey.
Chapter XIII. The hound's grandfather.
Mother did not get back to her writing all that day, for the
red-jerseyed hound whom the children had brought to Three Chimneys had
to be put to bed. And then the Doctor came, and hurt him most horribly.
Mother was with him all through it, and that made it a little better
than it would have been, but “bad was the best,” as Mrs. Viney said.
The children sat in the parlour downstairs and heard the sound of the
Doctor's boots going backwards and forwards over the bedroom floor. And
once or twice there was a groan.
“It's horrible,” said Bobbie. “Oh, I wish Dr. Forrest would make haste.
Oh, poor Jim!”
“It IS horrible,” said Peter, “but it's very exciting. I wish Doctors
weren't so stuck-up about who they'll have in the room when they're
doing things. I should most awfully like to see a leg set. I believe the
bones crunch like anything.”
“Don't!” said the two girls at once.
“Rubbish!” said Peter. “How are you going to be Red Cross Nurses, like
you were talking of coming home, if you can't even stand hearing me say
about bones crunching? You'd have to HEAR them crunch on the field of
battle--and be steeped in gore up to the elbows as likely as not, and--”
“Stop it!” cried Bobbie, with a white face; “you don't know how funny
you're making me feel.”
“Me, too,” said Phyllis, whose face was pink.
“Cowards!” said Peter.
“I'm not,” said Bobbie. “I helped Mother with your rake-wounded foot,
and so did Phil--you know we did.”
“Well, then!” said Peter. “Now look here. It would be a jolly good thing
for you if I were to talk to you every day for half an hour about broken
bones and people's insides, so as to get you used to it.”
A chair was moved above.
“Listen,” said Peter, “that's the bone crunching.”
“I do wish you wouldn't,” said Phyllis. “Bobbie doesn't like it.”
“I'll tell you what they do,” said Peter. I can't think what made him so
horrid. Perhaps it was because he had been so very nice and kind all the
earlier part of the day, and now he had to have a change. This is called
reaction. One notices it now and then in oneself. Sometimes when one has
been extra good for a longer time than usual, one is suddenly attacked
by a violent fit of not being good at all. “I'll tell you what they do,”
said Peter; “they strap the broken man down so that he can't resist or
interfere with their doctorish designs, and then someone holds his head,
and someone holds his leg--the broken one, and pulls it till the bones
fit in--with a crunch, mind you! Then they strap it up and--let's play
at bone-setting!”
“Oh, no!” said Phyllis.
But Bobbie said suddenly: “All right--LET'S! I'll be the doctor, and
Phil can be the nurse. You can be the broken boner; we can get at your
legs more easily, because you don't wear petticoats.”
“I'll get the splints and bandages,” said Peter; “you get the couch of
suffering ready.”
The ropes that had tied up the boxes that had come from home were all
in a wooden packing-case in the cellar. When Peter brought in a trailing
tangle of them, and two boards for splints, Phyllis was excitedly
giggling.
“Now, then,” he said, and lay down on the settle, groaning most
grievously.
“Not so loud!” said Bobbie, beginning to wind the rope round him and the
settle. “You pull, Phil.”
“Not so tight,” moaned Peter. “You'll break my other leg.”
Bobbie worked on in silence, winding more and more rope round him.
“That's enough,” said Peter. “I can't move at all. Oh, my poor leg!” He
groaned again.
“SURE you can't move?” asked Bobbie, in a rather strange tone.
“Quite sure,” replied Peter. “Shall we play it's bleeding freely or
not?” he asked cheerfully.
“YOU can play what you like,” said Bobbie, sternly, folding her arms and
looking down at him where he lay all wound round and round with cord.
“Phil and I are going away. And we shan't untie you till you promise
never, never to talk to us about blood and wounds unless we say you may.
Come, Phil!”
“You beast!” said Peter, writhing. “I'll never promise, never. I'll
yell, and Mother will come.”
“Do,” said Bobbie, “and tell her why we tied you up! Come on, Phil. No,
I'm not a beast, Peter. But you wouldn't stop when we asked you and--”
“Yah,” said Peter, “it wasn't even your own idea. You got it out of
Stalky!”
Bobbie and Phil, retiring in silent dignity, were met at the door by the
Doctor. He came in rubbing his hands and looking pleased with himself.
“Well,” he said, “THAT job's done. It's a nice clean fracture, and it'll
go on all right, I've no doubt. Plucky young chap, too--hullo! what's
all this?”
His eye had fallen on Peter who lay mousy-still in his bonds on the
settle.
“Playing at prisoners, eh?” he said; but his eyebrows had gone up a
little. Somehow he had not thought that Bobbie would be playing while in
the room above someone was having a broken bone set.
“Oh, no!” said Bobbie, “not at PRISONERS. We were playing at setting
bones. Peter's the broken boner, and I was the doctor.”
The Doctor frowned.
“Then I must say,” he said, and he said it rather sternly, “that's it's
a very heartless game. Haven't you enough imagination even to faintly
picture what's been going on upstairs? That poor chap, with the drops
of sweat on his forehead, and biting his lips so as not to cry out, and
every touch on his leg agony and--”
“YOU ought to be tied up,” said Phyllis; “you're as bad as--”
“Hush,” said Bobbie; “I'm sorry, but we weren't heartless, really.”
“I was, I suppose,” said Peter, crossly. “All right, Bobbie, don't you
go on being noble and screening me, because I jolly well won't have it.
It was only that I kept on talking about blood and wounds. I wanted to
train them for Red Cross Nurses. And I wouldn't stop when they asked
me.”
“Well?” said Dr. Forrest, sitting down.
“Well--then I said, 'Let's play at setting bones.' It was all rot. I
knew Bobbie wouldn't. I only said it to tease her. And then when she
said 'yes,' of course I had to go through with it. And they tied me up.
They got it out of Stalky. And I think it's a beastly shame.”
He managed to writhe over and hide his face against the wooden back of
the settle.
“I didn't think that anyone would know but us,” said Bobbie, indignantly
answering Peter's unspoken reproach. “I never thought of your coming in.
And hearing about blood and wounds does really make me feel most awfully
funny. It was only a joke our tying him up. Let me untie you, Pete.”
“I don't care if you never untie me,” said Peter; “and if that's your
idea of a joke--”
“If I were you,” said the Doctor, though really he did not quite know
what to say, “I should be untied before your Mother comes down. You
don't want to worry her just now, do you?”
“I don't promise anything about not saying about wounds, mind,” said
Peter, in very surly tones, as Bobbie and Phyllis began to untie the
knots.
“I'm very sorry, Pete,” Bobbie whispered, leaning close to him as she
fumbled with the big knot under the settle; “but if you only knew how
sick you made me feel.”
“You've made ME feel pretty sick, I can tell you,” Peter rejoined. Then
he shook off the loose cords, and stood up.
“I looked in,” said Dr. Forrest, “to see if one of you would come along
to the surgery. There are some things that your Mother will want at
once, and I've given my man a day off to go and see the circus; will you
come, Peter?”
Peter went without a word or a look to his sisters.
The two walked in silence up to the gate that led from the Three
Chimneys field to the road. Then Peter said:--
“Let me carry your bag. I say, it is heavy--what's in it?”
“Oh, knives and lancets and different instruments for hurting people.
And the ether bottle. I had to give him ether, you know--the agony was
so intense.”
Peter was silent.
“Tell me all about how you found that chap,” said Dr. Forrest.
Peter told. And then Dr. Forrest told him stories of brave rescues; he
was a most interesting man to talk to, as Peter had often remarked.
Then in the surgery Peter had a better chance than he had ever had of
examining the Doctor's balance, and his microscope, and his scales and
measuring glasses. When all the things were ready that Peter was to take
back, the Doctor said suddenly:--
“You'll excuse my shoving my oar in, won't you? But I should like to say
something to you.”
“Now for a rowing,” thought Peter, who had been wondering how it was
that he had escaped one.
“Something scientific,” added the Doctor.
“Yes,” said Peter, fiddling with the fossil ammonite that the Doctor
used for a paper-weight.
“Well then, you see. Boys and girls are only little men and women. And
WE are much harder and hardier than they are--” (Peter liked the “we.”
Perhaps the Doctor had known he would.)--“and much stronger, and things
that hurt THEM don't hurt US. You know you mustn't hit a girl--”
“I should think not, indeed,” muttered Peter, indignantly.
“Not even if she's your own sister. That's because girls are so much
softer and weaker than we are; they have to be, you know,” he added,
“because if they weren't, it wouldn't be nice for the babies. And that's
why all the animals are so good to the mother animals. They never fight
them, you know.”
“I know,” said Peter, interested; “two buck rabbits will fight all day
if you let them, but they won't hurt a doe.”